Find out more about studying Designing Audio Experiences: Art, Science and Production MA at UCL (University College London)? We've gathered all the key details, entry requirements, modules, fees, and more. Take the next step by booking an open day to explore it for yourself.
MA - Master of Arts
UCL East East Marshgate Campus
Full Time
Sep 2027
1 Year
The sound industry is crying out for scientifically-informed, creative audio designers. This MA will give you a sought-after mix of specialist technical spatial audio skills, in an environment where you’ll be mixing regularly meet with leading practitioners. You’ll learn how humans make sense of the world through sound, and apply that knowledge to create compelling, convincing audio experiences for diverse audiences and contexts. The practice-based Designing Audio Experiences: Art, Science and Production MA will train you to understand a range of relevant topics, enabling you to create compelling and original audio experiences for diverse audiences and contexts. You will explore many aspects of sound, including its propagation and perception, audio storytelling techniques, soundscape composition and sonic anthropology, aesthetic principles of sound, real and virtual sonic spaces, sound for moving image and sound in material environments. Today, with the growth of extended reality (including virtual and augmented realities) there are more opportunities for experiencing immersive sound. You will graduate with expert skills in spatial audio technologies, combined with the creative confidence to embrace the medium in original and exciting ways, blurring the pathways available to convention audio production, making work that hasn’t been seen before, and for which there is a huge demand. This will make you stand out against people with more conventional audio skills. You will learn to think critically about the role sound plays in human development across different societies and cultures, developing your artistic and technical abilities to create ambitious works that defy existing conventions, with the audience at their core. You will also develop demonstrable competencies transferable to any profession, including complex problem solving and creative initiative, design and communication skills, the ability to interpret and present complex ideas to diverse audiences, effective independent and team working, leadership, and time and project management. This practice-based Designing Audio Experiences: Art, Science and Production MA will train you to understand how humans make sense of the world through sound, and to create compelling, convincing audio experiences for diverse audiences and contexts. From documentary filmmaking to experimental cinema, you will specialise in the elements of public anthropology that interest you most, choosing from a range of optional modules to enrich your learning experience. The Designing Audio Experiences: Art, Science and Production MA degree is best suited to students looking to develop their immersive audio experience design in a professional framework, guided by leading industry figures and informed by innovative and scientific approaches to immersive audio. The course is well-suited to working professionals who wish to study part-time over two years.
Immersive audio is a rapidly growing field with more and more ways of delivering this kind of experience every year, from museum and gallery installations and immersive theatre to smart headphones, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and immersive audio books. The rule book has yet to be written for this emerging field, hence this module provides a timely opportunity to explore an exciting new world of both technology and creativity. Learning the fundamentals of the anthropology of human hearing, acoustics and psychoacoustics will give you the theoretical tools to produce immersive audio experiences with maximum emotional impact. You will learn how to use state of the art spatial audio hardware and software to produce a final factual immersive audio project, accompanied by a written evaluation to show how you have used all that you have learned.
A fee deposit will be charged at 2.5 percent of the first year fee
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